Weather Looks To Be Good For Overdue Shuttle Liftoff

March 11, 1985|By James Fisher of The Sentinel Staff

CAPE CANAVERAL — Good weather is expected when the space shuttle Discovery lifts off Friday, carrying U.S. Sen. Jake Garn and six others. That bit of good fortune may end the mission's repeated delays.

The forecast calls for partly cloudy skies and clear visibility with only a 10 percent chance of rain, officials said Wednesday.

''That's completely favorable,'' said NASA spokesman George Diller. Predicted winds from the southeast of about 6 mph are ''definitely within parameters'' for the 8:04 a.m. launch, he said.

Garn, a Utah Republican, and his fellow crew members will release two satellites and perform medical tests during the five-day mission. They are scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center at 8:15 a.m. April 17.

Crew members had a light schedule Wednesday. Most flew practice exercises in jets during the morning, and the whole crew checked their equipment for proper fit in the afternoon.

Bobko and Walker have flown on previous missions. Walker flew last September, when he performed medical research similar to tests planned for this flight. The other crew members are rookies.

The mission has been plagued by delays and NASA officials are under considerable pressure to return to the agency's planned once-a-month launch schedule to satisfy customers who are demanding reliability.

Most of the crew originally was set to fly aboard Challenger Feb. 20. That mission was repeatedly delayed before it was canceled when a design flaw was discovered in one of Challenger's satellites.

Discovery's flight includes a combination of cargo elements from Challenger and a Discovery mission that also originally was set for March. The combination flight then was delayed two weeks when Discovery's cargo bay door was damaged by a falling work platform that also broke a worker's leg.

Walker was added to the crew last month, replacing French payload specialist Patrick Baudry who has been rescheduled to fly in June.

After getting settled in space Friday the crew will launch a

Canadian Telesat satellite at 5:43 p.m. Saturday morning, a Leasat communications satellite that is being leased by the U.S. military will be released.

Garn will stay busy with medical experiments that deal with spacesickness and his body's general response to the weightless environment. Nearly half of the astronauts become sick during the first day or two in space, and scientists want to learn how to prevent the maladay.

Because Garn has no other major assignments he will be able to take measurements just after launch and at other times when astronauts normally are too busy.

The senator is chairman of the subcommittee that oversees NASA's budget and is going on the shuttle as part of his congressional oversight responsibility, according to NASA.

Some of the crew's space work will be child's play. The crew will be filmed using an array of toys to demonstrate weightlessness as a principle of physics for youngsters.

Discovery's toy box will include a top, yo-yo, gyroscopes, and a mouse that flips.

Walker will operate a McDonnell Douglas machine that separates a hormone from a protein material in weightlessness. The hormone will be tested for use as a secret new drug.

He operated the machine last fall but the samples were contaminated by bacteria. The company has since changed procedures to avoid that problem, and NASA has scheduled Walker on an extra flight later this year.